Car accident killed SD girls missing since 1971

ELK POINT, S.D. (AP) — Authorities say two South Dakota girls missing since 1971 died after driving into a creek on their way to a party at a nearby gravel pit.

State and local officials held a news conference Tuesday afternoon in Elk Point confirming that evidence inside a 1960 Studebaker found last fall included the remains of Cheryl Miller and Pamella Jackson.

The authorities also showed dozens of photographs of the Vermillion girls' clothing, a purse and Miller's relatively well-preserved driver's license.

The attorney general says people who saw the girls before they disappeared and other evidence indicates they had not been drinking. And mechanical tests on the car point away from foul play because it was in high gear.

Record flooding followed by a drought brought the vehicle into view last fall.